Rivet’s new album for Editions Mego is an uplifting and joyous affair coming in the wake of tragedy and disenchantment. It is yet another rebirth from an artist willing to take a step back and reprise the current situation he is in. Mika Hallbäck has a long credible history in the Swedish underground. First recognised for his industrial techno works under the Grovskopa moniker he worked privately on more experimental works that eventually came out as On Feather and Wire, an album released on Editions Mego in 2020. After much acclaim for this bold new direction that blended electronic abstraction, pop and industrial forms into a heavy synthetic trip two tragedies struck. One was the passing of label boss Peter Rehberg and then the passing of his dog Lilo, who was as close as a companion one could have. These events led to the release of the more unsettling follow up L+P-2 (Lilo and Pita minus two) on Midnight Shift Records in 2023. Peck Glamour sees Rivet return to the reawakened Editions Mego with an album of optimism inspired by reconciliation with loss and further explorations of new mental/sonic realms.

Hallbäck defines his approach as not being married to any particular machine, instrument, process or genre. However he holds a particular affinity to sampling, of which, he says, provides the dirt and grit amongst what would otherwise be pristine, generic machine music. The contemporary crate digging method of scouring obscure download music bogs for unique sounds was his preferred research practice.

Peck Glamour is an album full of tracks brimming with the excitement of exploration. It's the results of a mind informed by punk, industrial, techno, dancefloor, disappointment, trauma and rebirth. Here the synthetic and authentic is viewed simply as the same means of human rationale and expression.

The opening, ‘Catch Up to Light’, sets the scene with ecstatic and odd fluorescent vocals sliding amongst crystalline likembe whilst synths swirl amongst the external festivities. ‘Orbiting Empty Cocoon’ is somewhat a homage to the alien sound worlds of The Orb, one which takes the listener deeper into a mind melting array of teased potential as visual elements are executed in a mask of audio wizardry and euphoric staccato rhythms, the later being a nod to Singeli music. ‘Patitur Butcher’ is more dance frontal utilising the Ghatam drum and a YouTube rip of a Chinese language lesson. ‘Plastic Bag Putain’ was made during the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and should be clear of its intent. ‘All that Heaven Allows’ is a marimba cover of an imaginary Love Parade anthem. 'Kyrie Geire’ potentially briefly fills the void left by the demise of Coil. The entire trip of Peck Glamour is sewn up with ‘We left before we came’ whereby extraneous recordings of double bass player Gregory Vartian-Foss (tuning/strumming/moving the bass) are superimposed with local field recordings to create a gorgeous bed of sounds acting as an exciting exit music to this sharp collection of cinematic ear excursions.

Peck Glamour

All That Heaven Allows

Rivet 'All That Heaven Allows' (EMEGO317)

https://soundcloud.com/hultgren-norm for @rivet040

Listen 24/7 at www.retreatradio.net

Everything but a podcast #19 w/ Hultgren (25/01/25)

@rivet040

Listen 24/7 at www.retreatradio.net

Everything but a podcast #20 w/ Rivet (15/02/25)

Everything but a podcast #21 w/ Rivet (08/03/25)

TRACKS IN THE MUD – Retreat Radio's first-ever compilation of original music drops on April 20, 2025! Available as a double CD, on a wrench-shaped USB, digitally, and across multiple streaming platforms. Listen to the first 4 tracks and pre-order: https://retreatradio.bandcamp.com/album/tracks-in-the-mud

Tracklist:
SAATANS KVINNA - I have a lot to say (intro)
HOS - Jorn
Prins Emanuel & Rivet - Umarel
Klofink - Triple Tundric Vision
Goaty - Drear
Thomas Bush - Loneliness Remembers
DJ Sandylion - Look Out!
Moonilena - Solarna
Sofftronic - Metallic Dub
Oklo Gabon - The Theoretical
Jonte Prippz - Nomore
Digge Shim - Dawn 2 Dusk
East Moon - Soloflight (Ecover Version)
Miranda Magdalena - Polly Pocket (Rivet Scrub)
CYSP - Farever
tala drum corps - conc
Aircode - Came Back
Oblinof - KK2 Corp
Rumina - Rezillik
Ceqi - Fog Juice
tZimtZum - Re-Koil
towLie - taLk to me
Five o'clock Traffic - double refusal
2Lanes - Tadpole Prime

The online radio station Retreat Radio has acted as a unifying force on the underground scene in Malmö for close to a decade and now offers its first compilation of original music from its vast community.

A community grown exponentially like a virus, with Retreat Radio as the source of infection, comprised of artists in various stages of despair revelling in hazy ambient, angular industrial rhythms and post-dub influences. Now bringing you 24 tracks of frog-induced head music made for a sad generation that wanted to be club kids but had no club to go to.

Many - if not all - of the names behind this mammoth of a compilation are Retreat residents with current or past monthly shows on the programme. Many of whom have walked the stark lit street at the outskirts of town at night to climb a spiral staircase above a carwash to play their shows.

Loosely centered around the interpretation of dub as a genre, the compilation hand-picks a curation of tracks which nonetheless point to a coherent vision: that of dub as a vital cornerstone in the development of new music reflecting on an urban post-capitalist environment.

releases April 20, 2025

Mastered by: Martin Blomberg & Jonatan Bergsman
Artwork by: Oda Haugerud
Design by: FETIDGRUPPE©
Words by: Simon Eliasson

premiere: Prins Emanuel & Rivet - Umarel

It's Taytay innit.
Made for a gig sometime somewhere, forgot about it, and rediscovered just now.

FREE DL

TS - Invisible String (Rivet Edit) FREE DL

Everything but a podcast #22 w/ Rivet (05/04/25)

Everything but a podcast #23 w/ Rivet (10/05/25)

A fish dreams in a drum machine. Hidden Operator surfaces, soaked in fog and radio hiss. The fever escapes. Kontra-Musik and Kess Kill hold hands in a burning telephone booth—two labels dancing backwards through a mirror, cackling.

This is a record made of riddles and ruin. Dub coughs in the corner. Proto techno slips on oil. UK hardcore gurgles something unspeakable before melting into a slo-mo house groove with a hangover. Lo-fi? No-fi. High-why. Slightly wrong but utterly intentional.

Basslines stagger like drunks in a maze. Snares in existential crisis. Synths whispering conspiracy theories. This is an apparition. Half dungeon, half dancefloor, half pigeon coop.

Understanding is colonialism. Twitch instead.

KONTRAKESS01. Carved in vinyl. Released into the ether. Confuse your neighbours. Alarm your pets. Send postcards from the inside.
credits
releases September 8, 2025

Music: Johan Skugge
Images/text: Mika Hallbäck Vuorenpää & Ulf Eriksson
Mastering: Rude 66 

PREVIEW - In Orbit (KONTRAKESS01)

Limited cassette and digital release out on 1 February 2017

Tracklist: 
1 An Important Item Left Behind
2. Habitat Sickness
3. Oceans Between
4. Made of Nacre
5. Sömnlös Med Skräcken I Ådrorna (Mattias Alkberg Cover)
6. Above The Sewer

No Fog - An Important Item Left Behind EP Preview

Stockholm based label.

Contact: humanrender@gmail.com

No Fog - An Important Item Left Behind EP Preview

Human Render